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Learning art

Hi everyone! I'm new here and this will be my first sketchbook! I'm here to learn and to share. If you like what you see that's fine, but if you can tell me why you don't like and/ or how I could make it better, then it would be awesome .

I got back to drawing and painting last year, and although I haven't done it as much as I would like, the following should give you an idea where I am now.

This was my first try with watercolors. I had been watching some amazing lessons on watercolors by Stan Miller, and when he introduced a portrait I just had to give it a go. I started painting following his "lesson 16" but, after realizing that my one small brush and experience would not fit Stan's style or pace, I simply took a screenshot of the original B&W photo and continued on my own.

And this is the underdraw. I wasn't sure on how much it would show through the paint, and I was concerned about loosing sight of the features. Knee-deep into the watercolor I did salvage some, and the graphite disappeared. This is mostly the original underdraw (traditional), with a bit of the final painting (traditional), layered with gimp =digital.

Late night drawing turned out to become somewhat of an habit:
Credits: reference photo by Francesco Sambo
Credits:reference photo from Titania Lyn
The beauty and classical feel of this pose caught my attention. Here I'm trying to improve my drawing skills and understanding of back bits and pieces. I feel that the shading/ hatching might be too uniform. Oh well, another cup of Liberace shall be.

Started as a study, after a visit to the National Museum in Bavaria (Munich). I read the description at the Museum and can't remember (if known at all) who's the author of the sculpture used for reference (~30cm height, bronze, no wings, changed facial expression, probably from the 19th century collection). It would be great if someone could provide or help me find any info about it.

The original sculpture was about a slave market, and I felt that its beauty was a better fit for something else. Making up backgrounds, high perspectives, wings was very different from the anatomy that I was starting to get used to. I plan to come back to it and somehow get the focal point and highlights to make the "out of heaven into/over the city" work.

As a fellow new user, welcome! That watercolour painting is awesome! I can't help admiring it since I've never had the patience to learn watercolour myself. The only thing that I notice (do take what I say with a grain of salt though! I'm not 100% certain) that I (think) is wrong is the nose. I think that the nostril on the right side is showing a bit too much. Also, I'm not sure if I'll manage to explain this well but I think you should try to make the nose sharper-looking... right now it's blending with the right side of the face a bit too much. Otherwise, I love the colours you used to recreate the skin tone and the beard! They're wonderful!
The study of the bronze statue you posted is really good! The wings are a nice touch and I really like your reasoning for adding them!

The Following User Says Thank You to Snugglethebunny For This Useful Post:

You're spot on about the nose, right nostril is floating :| and I can see now what you mean about getting it sharper/ less blurred and more harder edges. I should have solved it on the underdraw, but I really had no idea how hard (but fun!) painting with water+color would be. I wish I could correct it, but I'll pay more attention to it next time! I'm glad you liked the colors, I'm trying to get more of them in my drawings as well . Thanks a lot for your feedback!
I'm very glad that you liked the winged lady. I'm still trying to get a bit more focus/ highlights on the city underneath (yup, now barely noticeable...)

I chose one from Saul Tepper, and we're supposed to "list one observation you discovered about each painting".

So I realized that he used the same value for the face shadows on both figures, with almost nothing to be seen on those masses of shadow. I'm still not sure if there is something actually painted to suggest the mans' eyes, or is just my brain tricking me into seeing it!

It took me more then 1 hour. I'm sure to be doing something wrong with the stylus settings, and getting the values modulated through pressure is probably not the way to go. I plan to check the contrl paint lessons soon.

Study of C. Duran by JS Sargent. Used a 7 values grayscale, plus adjust of size, force and hardness. Very different from my black + white values previous study. I'm nowhere close to the 30min study, but I just had to see how far could I push this media.
For this one I'll point out Repetition:
- lots of "V" and "^" shapes, the face, beard, lapel of jacket, bent arms, legs (even if barely noticeable on this rendering),
- texture on folds on cuffs, hand, jacket handkerchief, "tie". And all leading to the face with the "^" shape

While doing this I was surprised to see how much sense Sargent brush strokes made, and how easy was to follow *most of* them.

Still doing the master studies, but this time using a different tool. The mixing on canvas while painting is nice, but not really effective in getting the correct values. Or I might be forgetting to click somewhere. Anyway here is a wip for what will be my 5th.

Painting little more then these master studies I had to get some colors into something. So I got busy with a second watercolor portrait, testing a homebrew sized paper. Still a wip, in need of some cooler colors somewhere.
Colors are already on my "to learn" list.